


To Make a Long Story Bashert

by Lyrstzha



Series: To Make a Long Story Bashert [1]
Category: Royal Pains
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Backstory, Canon Jewish Character, First Meetings, Human Biology, M/M, Medical Jargon, Missing Scene, Misunderstandings, Pre-Canon, Romantic Soulmates, Slash, Soul Bond, Surprisingly canon-compliant, Yuletide, fantastical biology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-22 02:44:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17051561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyrstzha/pseuds/Lyrstzha
Summary: Hank is not going to be his father; he's going to stick by his soulmate in sickness and in health.Boris is going to be his father; he's not going to take his soulmate down with him.





	To Make a Long Story Bashert

**Author's Note:**

  * For [csi_sanders1129](https://archiveofourown.org/users/csi_sanders1129/gifts).



> General audiences: This is intended to mesh neatly with canon; some scenes are directly drawn from the blocking and dialogue of canon, and just reframed by the AU and by internal voices. If I were more technically inclined, I would have linked vids of the applicable scenes to the sections where I'm using them, but sadly I'm not. But if you watch the pilot episode, I promise this is surprisingly canon compliant for a slashy soulmate AU. 
> 
> Also, assume that Boris is often not speaking English. But his conversations are intelligible to him, so they are to the reader as well.
> 
> Lastly, "bashert" is a Yiddish word for "destiny" often used specifically in the context of one's divinely predestined spouse or soulmate.
> 
> To csi_sanders1129: Firstly, thank you for asking for something I enjoyed writing so much! Secondly, I intended to give backstory and a reframing of the pilot to set up that first summer, and that's what I've done. But I fell in love with this 'verse, and I haven't been able to stop writing in it ever since I posted this. I hope you don't mind, but I'd like to come back after reveal and make this the first story in a series.

_“Throughout history and across all cultural divides, there have been many different superstitious and mystical means of identifying soulmate bonds. But modern science has allowed us to make things far more easily quantifiable. Soulmates will experience a sudden surge of oxytocin at first eye contact, followed by a permanent, progressively increasing limbic resonance that shares deep emotional states and their physical effects between partners; indeed, there is some evidence that limbic resonance between partners may begin even before they physically meet in rare cases.” – Dr. Sashi Katdare, “A Mechanistic Examination of Soulmate Bonding”_

Boris Kuester von Jurgens-Ratenicz is ten years old when he is sent away to summer camp in Gstaad (though of course it is actually called Alpina Schule, and never so common a moniker as _summer camp_ ). His mother pretends it is supposed to be fun, supposed to help him meet more children his own age. He should have more friends than Claudette and Miloš, she says, and at least a few his own age.

For his part, Boris pretends to believe her. It's easier not to see the pained hitch in his father's steps, or the confusion that clouds his eyes more and more. It's easier to overlook that their private physician has taken up residence in the east wing of their estate in Kleinwalsertal, and that he holds low-voiced conversations with Boris' parents behind closed doors. 

Boris tells himself that his father will be well again in the fall, after a good rest and some quiet. He repeats this silently to himself every night, in fact, while staring up at the ceiling until he imagines strange shapes swirling through the shadows. In the mornings, his eyes feel gritty and hot and dry. Some of the other boys think he must have been crying, and they tease him about being homesick when no adults are around to hear.

Boris hates camp almost more than he has ever hated anything in his life. It can't possibly reach the top spot as long as he still fears what he's going to find looking at him from behind his father's eyes when the summer is over, though.

But near that longed for and dreaded end of the summer, when the crisp taste of fall fills the air, the days start to get shorter, and the sunlight takes on that slanting, silvery cast it gets in the alpine winter, something happens. On August 23rd, just a few days before Boris will leave for home at last, he is just returning to his room for the night when his vision goes dark. There is suddenly no up or down, only a sense of rushing, as if he is caught in a powerful current in a black ocean. When he can see again, he's on the ground and he is bleeding slightly where he must have clipped his temple against the nightstand as he fell.

“Have you eaten enough today?” the nurse asks him critically, shining a light into his eyes. “Have you been careful about not getting too much sun?”

“Yes,” Boris answers her shortly, somewhat put out by the implication that this is somehow his fault. “But my head felt...strange.” Strange isn't really the word for it, but it's all that he has. What is the word for feeling as though he has opened like a flower in the sun, spread vulnerable and raw and loose, but somehow wonderfully? He can already speak four languages, and none of them have a word like that.

“But not now?”

Boris hesitates. “Not now,” he finally agrees.

“Likely you just came out of the hot shower too quickly,” she decides with a shrug. “You don't have a concussion, and you've stopped bleeding easily enough. Come back if you feel strange again, or if there's any pain or nausea.”

Boris frowns at that, but he goes back to his room. His head doesn't exactly feel strange anymore, but it does feel...warm. It's almost as if there is another presence there in bed with him. It might be scary, but somehow it is exactly the opposite. He falls asleep easily for the first time all summer.

 

_“Do you find yourself having vivid, detailed dreams of places you've never seen or things you've never done? You may be resonating with your soulmate! While it's rare, according to neurobiologist Dr. Lena Lawson of the Harvard Department of Neurobiology, there are substantiated cases of such deep connection between soulmates who have never physically met. In fact, sometimes the dreams have provided clues that made meeting possible!” – Emma Miller, BuzzFeed, “Ten Signs that You're Going to Beat the Odds and Find Your Soulmate”_

Hank Lawson is nine years old when he is sent to summer camp at the Passaic YMCA. He is not so young that he doesn't know his parents have packed him off to camp so they can argue in private, but he's not really sure what they're arguing about. He knows it has something to do with family, and he hears the name Ted, but that doesn't mean anything to him except a word surrounded by awkward, tense silences and a kind of conflict his home has never known before. Susie Meyers, who lives with her parents in the apartment upstairs, says that soulmates are not supposed to argue about anything _ever_ , and that makes him feel just that little bit sicker about the whole thing.

Hank hates camp more than anything he has ever hated in his life. He's pretty good at making friends, but they don't really distract him from what's going on at home. But he does get pretty good at basketball, so there's that. And his art teacher is fascinated by his work, even though it isn't really much good, technically speaking.

“Did you see this in a movie, maybe?” she asks, eyeing his watercolor of a fleet of red-sailed boats Hank will not know for many years are Chinese junks.

Hank shrugs. “I dreamed about them, but I can't make them look exactly right. And I can't paint the funny roofs on the shore; they just come out like trees.”

“Funny roofs?”

“Like a roof on top of a roof on top of a roof?” Hank tries to trace the shape he saw in his dream with one finger. “Kinda like the City Hall Park fountain in Manhattan.” His talents are nowhere near rendering that with a brush. Even the boats are a pretty wobbly and warped, to be honest.

She shakes her head. “I love your imagination, Hank. That's something I can't teach. Now if we can just work on your perspective...”

 

_“Of particular concern to this study, the serious illness, injury, and especially death of one mate past the final point of complete bonding precipitates a reciprocal system failure in the other mate in 92% of cases. Immediate medical intervention has proven effective in resuscitating the mirroring mate in only 12% of these cases; the remaining 80.96% cannot be revived by any means currently available to modern medicine.” – Dr. Carlos Casseras Kuester von Jurgens-Ratenicz, “Prevention and Mitigation of Mirrored Negative Patient Outcomes in Bonded Subjects”_

“Pass the vodka,” Dima demands again, as if he hasn't drunk most of it already. Boris takes a last sip before handing it over, resigned to losing the rest.

“It's ironic,” he says as he passes the bottle, almost too quietly to be heard over the soft susurrus of the waves against the hull of their yacht. The Celebes Sea is relatively quiet tonight, but never silent.

“What is?” Dima asks, but his mulish look suggests that he already knows what Boris is getting at.

“I never feared to lose our mother so soon after my father. I thought, because they were not mated, there was no reason to worry. She should –”

“Do not start this again,” Dima complains. “People live, people die. There is no _should_ or _should not_ about it. They are simply gone, and we mourn them. That's all the destiny you can expect.” 

“Not all the destiny _I_ can expect,” Boris counters in a tone that is arch and a little bitter.

“Gah!” Dima throws up his hands, narrowly missing dropping the empty bottle on his own head. “This is what I mean! You are so certain of your fate already, as if I could not throw you over the side of this damned boat and make an end of you tonight!”

Boris shoots him a sardonic glance. “And are you planning to, as you say, throw me over the side of this damned boat and make an end of me tonight?”

“I should be,” Dima grumbles. “That would show you.”

“I'm sure it would,” Boris agrees. “But we both know that my time is limited by my blood,” he waves a hand at Dima, “barring whatever nefarious plans you may have made. If nothing else kills me in the next twenty years, I will die as my father did. In pain, infirmity, and madness.” A few years ago, he had trouble getting the words out of his throat without choking on them. He's more than a little proud of himself that now he can say them almost as calmly and flatly as if he were reporting on the weather. He does pride himself so on his aplomb.

“You cannot _know_ that,” Dima insists. “And thinking that you do is how you get into the kind of trouble I had to get you out of in Tibet.”

Boris wheels on him immediately. “You should not have come for me in Tibet,” he argues. “I told you that at the time. It was far too dangerous, and _you_ do not have to –”

“Do not tell me what I do not have to do!” Dima yells, hurling the bottle down at their feet. It thunks loudly against the polished wood of the deck but does not shatter. “Do you think you are the only one who dreams of dying in the service of a good cause rather than waiting for a senseless and ignoble end? Do you think, just because I am not a Ratenicz, that I would rather wait to die of a stroke in my old age while _you_ are off dying to change the world?” Dima looks away, out across the ocean, and he grips both hands on the railing in front of him hard enough that Boris can see his knuckles go pale even in the moonlight. “Do not try to keep all the glory for yourself, Borya,” he finishes quietly, and Boris understands immediately that's not what he means at all, but he doesn't know quite how to answer what he thinks Dmitry is really saying.

“You may have your share of the glory, such as it is, if you want it,” Boris finally says. “So long as you do not die for me. That would be a poor exchange, mathematically speaking.”

Dima growls, “ _Mathematically_ speaking! You are such a fool I cannot even look at you.”

Boris raises a soothing hand between them. “I am only saying it would make no sense, and it is not what I want.” He pauses, a little uncomfortable with the weight of the moment and Dima's anger, and decides to lighten the mood. “You _should_ live to a ripe old age, surrounded by squabbling children and a doting soulmate who loves you well enough to hide your vodka and feed you only salads. _That_ is what I want for you.”

 _That_ gets Dima to look at him again. He glares for a moment, then huffs out a reluctant chuckle and cuffs Boris lightly on the shoulder. “You are an evil man with evil dreams,” he accuses. “How can you imagine me in such a life?”

Boris makes a show of seriously thinking it over, but he can't quite keep a grin from quirking up one corner of his mouth. “A life replete with love, good health, and the posterity of your line? Who does not long for such things?”

Dima rolls his eyes at that. “Me, with children and a soulmate.” He snorts. “I grant you, I may have a child or two one day, most likely by accident.”

“You might _already_ ,” Boris corrects him.

Dima cuffs him again. “I would know! I do keep track.”

Boris raises his eyebrows incredulously. “That must be quite a feat. I assume you delegated some of the work?”

“To an entire investigation firm.” Dima grins, and Boris is so pleased to see it that he does not call him on the exaggeration. “And a soulmate!” Dima goes on. “As if I would want to be so tied to a single person. Can you imagine your happiness so dependent on another? To be bound to someone else's moods.” Dima shudders and shakes his head. “No, that is not for me, even if the odds of finding my mate were higher. You, on the other hand...” He shoots a sly look at Boris. “Do not pretend you are not a romantic.”

Boris goes tense, all the ease draining from his face. “I cannot be,” he says tersely. “That, too, would be a poor exchange to ask of anyone.”

The light fades from Dima's face, too. “I told you, you cannot know that. You should not refuse the life you want because you are afraid you cannot keep it.”

“I will not have my love be the death of anyone,” Boris insists softly, but his voice is all steel. “The family curse will die with me, and it will take no other with me. I have promised myself this. Should I ever happen across my soulmate, I will not allow a bond to form.”

 

_“Although bonded soulmates account for only around 5% of the population, that is not at all the impression one would get from contemporary media. Judging just from the most popular movies and television series of the last decade, one would think most people successfully found and bonded with their soulmates – usually with the help of a precocious child or an adorable animal. Aside from generating unrealistic expectations in our youth, this creates a problem in our culture in terms of dealing with what happens when bonds do not end in happily ever after. We need to acknowledge that this happens. Sometimes soulmates meet after they've already made other commitments they can't break, sometimes there are other barriers. And sometimes fully bonded soulmates, for whatever reason, decide to let their bond go dormant. This requires both physical and emotional distance, of course, but it can be done.” – Devesh Bandyopadhyay, PhD, “What Comes After Happily Ever After: Toward a Nuanced Understanding of Soulmate Bonds in Public Discourse”_

Eddie Lawson is gone. It takes Hank a while to admit that. It might take him even longer, but someone has to pull things together. Someone has to get his mother's medicine, heat up some soup she will barely touch, and wipe her face with a cool, wet cloth after she's been throwing up. Someone has to make Evan's breakfast and get him to school. Someone has to buy groceries and make sure the bills get paid. Someone has to carry the weight of the Lawson world, and who else is there now but Hank? His compass has narrowed to school and home; there's no time or space for much else in his life. He talks to Winnie sometimes, at least, but he's always afraid that if he lets all the raw weakness in his head start spilling out, he might not be able to figure out how to get it all bottled back up again.

“Dad's gone,” he finally says shortly to his mother after the second week, because he's not entirely sure she knows, even though soulmates should always be able to feel whether their mate is near or not. Who knows if she's too sick to tell anymore?

She opens her eyes, but she just stares at the hummingbird suncatcher in the window. Eddie bought it for her at a craft fair a few months before to help brighten the room she was so often limited to. She stares so long Hank reaches out to touch her wrist and check her pulse, just to be sure.

She stirs a little as he touches her, and he feels that awful mixture of relief and guilt at the selfishness of his relief that has become too familiar. “I know,” she finally whispers. “But I can't talk about him now.”

Hank frowns uncertainly, and he opens his mouth to ask a question, but he can't quite figure out what it should be.

It must show on his face, because his mother's gaze slides over to him with a long, ponderously slow sweep like even moving her eyes makes her tired. “He wanted to live. He has a better chance if I let him go. If I don't want him here. If I don't think about him at all.” Her wrist turns just a little in Hank's hand, just enough to brush her fingertips faintly over his knuckles. “I'm sorry, baby. You should be able to talk to someone about him. But I can't.”

Hank's mouth snaps shut so hard his jaw aches. For one horrible moment, he lets himself think that his father does not _deserve_ that chance at surviving his dying mate. Then he takes a deep breath, works his jaw loose, and busies himself with taking his mother's mostly uneaten lunch tray away. There's no room for his anger here right now.

But one thing he knows now? Susie Meyers and every Hallmark movie ever might be dead wrong about soulmates, but if he ever finds his, he's going to do right by them. He will take care of his mate, no matter what. He will _stay_. He is not going to be his father.

 

_“Aside from the surge of oxytocin at first eye contact between soulmates, functional magnetic resonance imaging at this initial stage will reveal a shift in amygdalae shape from the classic almond-shaped structure toward a more spherical formation. Blood tests at this point indicate the presence and increasing levels of acragapacin, colloquially known as the bonding hormone. The most common terms subjects who experience these phenomena use to describe the experience are 'electric shock,' 'full-body vibration,' and 'melting daze.' The most astonishing thing about this stage, then, is that some subjects fail to identify it for what it is. Most often this is a result of confounding factors, such as injury or exigent circumstances, though certain medications such as atropine have antiacragapagenic side effects. There have been cases of pharmaceutically-induced early-stage bond suppression resulting from this side effect, both as a desired outcome and an unintended consequence.” – Dr. Sashi Katdare, “A Mechanistic Examination of Soulmate Bonding”_

Hank is not sure why he lets Evan talk him into leaving the shell of his apartment and trekking all the way out to the Hamptons for the kind of party that is definitely _not_ his scene. Free booze and his lack of a working Netflix account don't really explain the odd urge he has to go. He could be watching funny YouTube animal videos on his phone in sweats back in his apartment right now, after all. And it's a pretty glitzy event, but he spends a lot of the evening thinking of working class things to say to horrify models and socialites. This is kind of amusing, but it has never been his idea of fun. It's so much more Evan's kind of party. Medical emergencies, on the other hand, are exactly Hank's kind of party.

“You, call 911,” Hank snaps out authoritatively as he looks up from the still-unconscious April, pointing at one of the hovering crowd. She's breathing more easily since he injected the atropine, but he wants to get her into a hospital as soon as possible.

“No, thank you. No,” a lightly accented male voice cuts across the room, just like its owner, who strides toward Hank with everyone's eyes on him. With his dark, expensive-looking tailored suit and his classical, aristocratic face, he is just exactly what Hank would have imagined an Old World nobleman to look like. Even if Hank didn't know that this man literally owns this room, he'd still be able to tell it was at least figuratively true. Then Boris' gaze slides full onto his own, and Hank blinks as his breath inexplicably catches in his throat and his focus skips like a scratched record. It only lasts for a moment before Boris turns to the man shadowing his side to speak a few words in a language Hank doesn't know. 

“No paramedics,” Boris adds as he joins Hank and Dr. Silver around April. His eyes return to meet Hank's again.

But at this outrage Hank recovers his wits. Isn't this exactly the entitled, special-treatment crap that got him fired? “You mean no _cops_ ,” Hank challenges him, meaning to reach for his own phone to call them himself. Somehow he doesn't, but he's not sure why.

“Aren't you a doctor?” Boris circles closer, taking the space vacated by Dr. Silver as the functionary at Boris' side dismisses the man discreetly.

Hank rises to his feet, trying to get his balance literally to shore it up metaphorically. “Yes, but only a doctor. She needs a _hospital_.”

“Hamptons Heritage Hospital? The place is a taco stand,” Boris counters dismissively, and Hank figures he has clocked this entitled, high-handed asshole just right. “For anything more advanced than a band-aid, we'd have to get her to Stony Brook in Manhattan. What does she need?”

“The second half of the antidote,” Hank says, kneeling down again to see how April's doing. Wait, wasn't he going to call the paramedics himself? He's never been one to let a man like Boris intimidate him into not taking proper care of his patients – he was willing to give up his job on that principle, after all. He didn't even stand for this crap when he still had something left to lose. This inaction is ridiculous.

“There must be some way to help her,” Boris suggests leadingly, kneeling down also. He leans forward intently. “And...help me?” he coaxes delicately.

Hank looks up at him, rather closer than before, and promptly feels a little dizzy again. For such a large, open room, it's weirdly stuffy and hot in here. And maybe these last weeks vegetating on a couch and eating junk food have thrown off his fitness levels more than he'd imagined, because his heart is hammering harder than he ever remembers it doing even in the middle of the most stressful nights at the ER.

“I would be doubly grateful,” Boris adds softly, his gaze a palpable weight.

Hank sways just a hair forward before he can catch himself. He chides himself silently for letting this man's influence get to him; he's not Evan, and none of this rich and powerful shtick impresses him. But somehow he still doesn't call 911. Instead he find himself wrangling a lunk of a lifeguard as a helper and sending him to demand the auto-injector from one of the security people's Mark 1 kits.

“Where do you practice, Doctor?” Boris asks, standing just behind Hank's shoulder, where he is both impossible to ignore and impossible to look at properly while tending to April. This is a lot more aggravating than it should be.

“Nowhere,” Hank answers flatly. “My last hospital fired me,” he twists his head to look over his shoulder pointedly at Boris, “for letting a rich patient die.” Hank would never otherwise put it like that, but now? Let this guy stick _that_ in his pipe and smoke it.

“Bureaucracies, fzzt!” Boris snorts in disdain. “I find the skilled amongst us are better left to their own devices, yes?” And then he gestures to the returning idiot lifeguard, takes the Mark 1 case, and holds it for Hank himself like an assistant. It really shouldn't be disarming, but it kind of is.

“All right, here we go, sweetie.” Hank injects her, and she finally comes around with a start and a wild look.

“Hello, April,” Boris says loudly, in the firmly reassuring tone one might use for a mostly deaf grandmother who'd gotten a bit confused. “She's going to be fine, right?” he adds aside to Hank.

“She should still be taken to a hospital, whether it serves Mexican food or not,” Hank insists. “You can't just shoot her up and put her to bed.” There's no way he'd ever allow that kind of thing to fly on his watch. Not in a million years.

Except he's still weirdly off-balance and even more weirdly agreeable to this Boris' request, because that's exactly what they do.

 

_“Antiacragapacins taken by both partners have proven effective in 97.2% to retard and even arrest the bonding process. Only subjects who have a resistance or allergy to the medication taken present with unimpeded acragapacin production, and only particularly powerful bonds display progression in spite of this treatment. In cases where only one partner takes the medication, effectiveness is surprisingly only negligibly reduced. Clearly, we can thus conclude that a bond needs to progress on both sides simultaneously. Historically, such pharmacological intervention has mostly been used in cases when a particular bond was deemed wrong for social, religious, or political reasons, such as the suppression of homosexual bonds due to homophobia. Such usage is largely uncommon today, and most people do not recognize the drugs which can be used to achieve bond suppression.” – Dr. Sashi Katdare, “A Mechanistic Examination of Soulmate Bonding”_

It says something about Boris' life that he has a simple, subtle hand gesture for 'get me the suppressants immediately,' even though he has never told Dieter why he might suddenly need the pills from his stash of paxonidol, a medication most commonly used to delay premature labor. He's reasonably confident that Dieter thinks they're sedatives. He also has a simple, subtle hand gesture for 'run a thorough background check on this person immediately,' but that's to be expected of a man in his position.

He's grateful that he managed to slip himself some of the atropine from the Mark 1 kit while Hank was distracted, but atropine has only a moderate suppressant effect on acragapacin. It's not a long-term solution, and that's well enough demonstrated by the fact that he's trying to get hold of a long-term solution in the first place. Shouldn't he be encouraging Dr. Lawson to get as far away as possible immediately?

He surreptitiously dry swallows a paxonidol as Hank settles April into a bed upstairs, hoping it kicks in before the effect of the atropine fades completely. To be honest, he's not even sure that the atropine worked all that well, given how flushed and euphoric he's feeling in spite of it.

And he is absolutely _not_ hovering menacingly with forbiddingly crossed arms as the recovering April makes doe eyes at Hank. He prefers to think of it as adopting a dignified posture under stress.

“You're the one that saved me,” she murmurs feelingly, giving Hank's hand a lingering caress with her fingertips. Boris' jaw tightens painfully.

“Yeah, the lifeguard helped out, too,” Hank quips self-deprecatingly.

“Who are you?” she asks breathlessly.

“I'm Hank,” he tells her, and it really shouldn't matter that he gives his name to this girl before he gives it to Boris. But it does.

“Hi, Hank.” And she gives Hank a soulful smile that makes Boris seriously consider arranging a modeling job for her in Siberia.

But instead of responding, Hank turns to look directly at Boris glowering behind him. He looks a little awkward and as if he'd like to be rescued, and all thoughts of Siberia melt away in an unexpected jolt of warmth.

“Let us leave young April to rest and recover her strength,” Boris says to him. “I shall leave Natan right outside the door; simply call out if you need anything. And I shall see that you are checked on hourly as well,” he adds to April graciously.

He collects Hank with a tilt of his head and leads the way to his office, trailing Dieter as usual.

“You always keep a detox kit around for the occasional OD?” Hank asks him as they step into the office. There's judgement in his voice, and it rankles.

“For the protection of my guests,” Boris defends smoothly.

“For the protection of your _privacy_ ,” Hank counters sardonically.

Boris concedes this point with a small lift of his chin and upward flick of his eyes. He thinks he should be angry at being questioned and judged like this, and he certainly shouldn't find it exciting or attractive, but that ship has apparently sailed. It's all he can do to keep his smile small and subtle. 

This seems to settle Hank's urge to challenge him. “So I...I gather you're Boris,” Hank says a bit awkwardly, and it looks like he's having trouble not smiling, too. His face is open now, and turned up toward Boris like a flower to the sun. It's too intoxicating.

“Boris Kuester von Jurgens-Ratenicz,” Boris agrees, offering his hand before he can think better of it. Hank's smile grows a little, and he gives a small nod and wry twist of his lips as he takes Boris' hand. “You'd be informal about it too, no?” Boris adds dryly, just to see if he can make that smile even brighter.

And he _can_. Hank's smile flashes wider, and he glances away with a faint blush. “Yeah,” he murmurs quickly over a breathy little laugh that makes Boris dizzy, and every millimeter of skin contact between them is absolutely _alight_. Good grief, what would touching him be like _without_ paxonidol? Boris recovers his senses enough to reclaim his hand and stash it firmly down by his side where it can do no more harm. “I'm Hank,” Hank says more firmly as their clasp ends, looking back at him again.

“Hhhhank,” Boris manages, with a lift of his eyebrows to convey that this is not the kind of name he is used to saying. But he is definitely not trying to convey that this is not really a name he has ever imagined moaning in passion, and he really needs to stop thinking about things like that _right now_. “Have a seat, Hank,” he directs, moving behind his desk where he can keep it safely between them.

“Ah, you know what, it's a pleasure meeting you, but –”

“I wanted to thank you,” Boris cuts him off firmly.

“Yeah, no sweat,” Hank tosses off dismissively.

“And compensate you for the trouble,” Boris adds, opening his ledger. He can't take care of his soulmate in all the ways he should, but this at least he can do.

“Uh, yeah, look, I can't accept that,” Hank stammers quickly, obviously trying to head him off before he can make out a check.

“A pro bono concierge doctor,” Boris observes, and wants to be and sound less impressed than he is.

“Concierge doctor?” Hank asks, looking like this is an entirely unfamiliar concept to him.

“Private physician for hire? All the rage, amongst us elite folk,” Boris explains, giving a pointed dryness to 'elite folk.' He settles into the chair behind his desk, where he can look up at Hank and cross his legs, just in case. He tries not to think about _just in case_ too much, but Hank is making it hard in every sense of the word.

“No, I was just in the wrong place at the right time, and...I was ethically obligated to intervene,” Hank insists earnestly. Boris has a suspicion that he's smiling at Hank again, damn it, but that modesty is irresistibly charming. “But you should've called the girl an ambulance,” Hank reprimands quietly. It's somehow worse than hot anger would be; he's not angry, he's just _disappointed_.

Boris is sure he isn't smiling anymore, mostly because he feels a little like he's been kicked. He should probably be grateful that his mate doesn't approve of him. Won't that make this easier? But he isn't. “Life isn't always simple,” he tries to argue, aiming to get back a lighter tone.

“Well, death _is_ ,” Hank insists, stopping the deflection cold.

“Sit down, Hank,” Boris finds himself coaxing. He can't let his soulmate walk away thinking of him like this, and he finds himself desperate to make a better impression. When Hank starts to shake his head, Boris adds, “Please.” He tries to make it sound less heartfelt and desperate than it actually is, but he's not sure he succeeds.

Something complicated passes over Hank's face at that, and Boris thinks he's still going to leave for a moment, but instead he awkwardly settles himself into an uncomfortable-looking perch on one of the guest chairs.

“You're quite right. My privacy is sacred to me. And I can't afford any unwanted attention this summer.” Boris stands and walks around the desk without actually meaning to, finding himself perched on the edge of it almost on top of Hank. He really needs to get this under control before he pounces on the man. “The last thing I need is a page six sensation on the first weekend. But something told me truly she was in better hands...with you,” he almost purrs, nodding at Hank and leaning even closer.

Hank just looks at him. His face looks wary and watchful, like Boris is an important puzzle he can't figure out.

“Where are you staying?” Boris asks him, though this information and so much more will no doubt be waiting for him in a folder momentarily.

“Some theme park in Worst Hampton,” Hank answers with a disgusted shake of his head.

“Stay in my guest cottage,” Boris offers, because he has clearly lost his mind. “For the summer.” He looks away for a second to stop himself from adding _and forever_. “It'll be vacant shortly,” he adds when he can look back again. He would happily build Hank a whole new house if he had to, but Hank definitely does not need to know that.

“Yeah, no, I'm only out here for the weekend,” Hank demurs with a nod, and that should be good news. It isn't.

Boris nods along with him, looking down to gather himself. “Well. If you extend your stay,” Boris insists. He slaps his own thighs hard to get himself to stop there, and Dieter, bless him, also recognizes this as a signal to usher Hank out. 

Hank walks out slowly, as if he is slightly dazed and not quite sure about leaving, glancing back several times as he goes. 

“Bye Hank!” Boris calls after him, forcing a hearty cheer into his voice that does not want to attach to those words at all. He can't watch Hank go.

After he has dispatched Dieter with a parting bar of gold for his good doctor, Boris gives in to the inevitable and calls Dima on their secure line.

“I met him tonight,” he confesses in a rush. “My mate. I met him, I looked into his eyes, and I _touched_ him. I have been unforgivably selfish,” Boris spits out, disgusted with himself.

“Wait, wait,” Dima interrupts. “You began a bond tonight?”

“No!” Boris yells, much louder than he needs to. “Thank goodness for paxonidol, or I would have doomed him already with my poor self-control.”

“So you met him, you looked into his eyes, and you touched him...but you felt no bond? Then how do you know this man is your intended?”

“Well.” Boris gets quieter. “I took suppressants _almost_ immediately, but our eyes met before I could. I should have known! I felt odd and unsettled all evening until the moment I laid eyes on him. And then he turned and looked at me, and it was too late.”

“Ah. So you _did_ begin a bond, but you froze it at the beginning,” Dima concludes.

“Fine. Yes,” Boris concedes grudgingly. “And I am not sure my paxonidol is at a high enough dose. I could still...” He takes a deep breath and searches for words that come not much more easily now than they did when he tried to explain himself to his summer camp nurse. “Feel the substance of his soul radiating like sunlight,” he finishes, entirely inadequately.

“Borya, I promise you, the dose I got for you is high enough to arrest a bond,” Dima assures him firmly, in the same voice Boris has heard him use when he's trying to calm a spooked horse. “Do _not_ take more than one every twelve hours. It will do nothing to enhance the suppression you want, and there can be most unpleasant side effects at higher doses.”

“As you say,” Boris agrees with a sigh. “But Dima, I invited him to stay in my guest house for the summer. I wanted...I wanted to at least have him near, to come to know him a little.”

“And why not?” Dima argues. “You are perfectly safe with him on your pills. Let yourself have this much, you fool. If you insist on denying yourself joy, at least look at it from afar. Wave at it from the distance.” 

Could he really? Could it be that simple? Nothing has ever been more tempting, and maybe this, at least, he might have in these last years. “But he said no,” Boris answers shortly.

Dima snorts. “I like him already.”

“But perhaps...” Boris trails off thoughtfully. “Perhaps I could make the offer more attractive to him.”

Dima valiantly tries to stifle a laugh at that, but Boris can still hear the faint snickering over the line. 

“Using my _influence_ ,” Boris insists somewhat primly.

“If that is what we are calling it now,” Dima chokes out through laughter he has clearly given up on trying to hide.

“If you are unequal to the gravity of this situation...” Boris hangs up on him with a haughty sniff and turns to his folder of background information on Henry Lawson. There must be a way to persuade his mate to stay here with him, to keep him close but not _too_ close.

 

_“Nearly every romantic movie made in the last fifty years proceeds on the assumption that sexual intercourse is necessarily the step after initial bonding. The majority of these movies frame sex as the final act to complete bonding, and it's true that this does reflect the older traditions of proving a bond. Before we had reliable medical evidence of bonds, soulmates could only prove their connection by demonstrating their limbic resonance, which common wisdom held could only develop via a sexual connection. And while it's true that limbic resonance develops between bondmates as their intimacy grows, that intimacy does not have to be sexual for a pair to reach full limbic resonance. This fact does nothing whatsoever to slow down the parade of 'magical bonding sex' in films today.” – Devesh Bandyopadhyay, PhD, “What Comes After Happily Ever After: Toward a Nuanced Understanding of Soulmate Bonds in Public Discourse”_

Hank starts to suspect who must have circulated his name and number as the new go-to concierge doctor, but it concerns him a little that he never gave Boris his phone number. But really, he supposes he shouldn't be too surprised. It could seem creepy and invasive, but somehow it doesn't.

When he gets Tucker safely packed off on the helicopter and comes back to the tacky motel he's staying at with Evan, there's a job interview and a lovestruck model waiting for him. He tackles April first.

“You must have felt it too,” she insists as soon as they step outside for privacy. “The moment our eyes met, and then when our hands touched over the glass of water. I _know_ you're my soulmate, Hank. I've never been more sure of anything in my life.”

“I...I'm sorry, but I didn't feel the same thing,” Hank contradicts her gently. 

“So what do you feel now? What does this feel like to you?” she asks, reaching out a hand to brush her fingers against his cheek. Hank gently captures her hand and moves it away from his face, holding it lightly in his own for a second before depositing it on the balcony railing in front of them. He can see where this is going, and she really does seem like a lovely woman, but he still doesn't feel what she thinks she does. 

“I'm sorry,” he repeats. “I'm sure you would be a wonderful soulmate anyone would be lucky to have, but you're not mine.”

“We should get tested,” she argues immediately. “I _know_ you're wrong. Give me a chance to prove it to you. It was a stressful night, what with you trying to save me, and you could have mistaken the signs in all the confusion. That's not just a romcom thing! It really happens!”

“Yes, that _can_ happen,” Hank allows with a sigh. And, because he is an honest medical professional, he adds reluctantly, “But given the atropine in your system, there wouldn't have been anything to miss in any case.”

“Atropine? What does that have to do with anything?”

“It has a side effect of temporarily suppressing the bonding process."

“So you couldn't feel anything because of the atropine!” she declares triumphantly.

“That's not what I'm saying,” Hank sighs.

“Fine, then how long does this atropine last?” she demands.

“Oh, the bonding suppression effect would have worn off by now,” Hank assures her. “If there were something to feel, I should know by now.” He'd really like to meet his soulmate, and meeting her while saving her life would be right out of a fairytale. But he's just not in that story with April.

“You're still confused,” she insists. “Come with me to the clinic so I can prove it to you. It'll only take a few hours.”

“I really don't think that's necessary,” Hank tries.

“Then at least try the old fashioned way, Hank!” April leans closer and reaches for him again.

Hank steps back. “That is not a good idea right now,” he tells her firmly. He would never take advantage of her confusion like that. She doesn't have to be his soulmate for him to treat her like a human being.

April insists they should at least see more of each other. He tries to put her off gently by explaining Nightingale syndrome to her, but she still doesn't want to believe that's all it is. He tells her to wait a month to see if her feelings pass, and moves on to the oddest job interview he's ever been part of.

Divya Katdare is the most charmingly earnest steamroller he's ever met, and Ms. Newberg is a force of nature. But he's going to say no to them. He's going to walk away. But then there's Jill Casey, and she makes him reconsider. She actually understands what happened to him, and tells him she would have been on his side if she'd been his hospital administrator. It's amazingly affirming to finally hear that from someone, at least this once.

“So what were you, a nice normal girl, doing at a party like that last night?” he asks her.

“I'm raising money for a local free clinic,” she answers. 

“Oh,” he says brightly. It's exactly what he should have expected of her.

“And Boris has been very generous,” she continues.

“Oh,” he says again, but much more tightly and subdued. He almost misses a step as they're walking along the beach. Hearing Boris' name makes him feel oddly muddled. Maybe he's jealous? He's only just met Jill, but he likes her. That must be it.

He's still feeling it when they part and she writes her number on his hand. He wonders if maybe _this_ is what it's supposed to be like when he meets his soulmate. But if he has to wonder, then probably not.

Standing alone by the ocean after she's gone it feels like a fresh start, though. And he could really use one of those, soulmate or not.

He goes to tell Boris that he's decided to stay after all. He doesn't have to move into that arrogant elitist's guesthouse just because he's decided to stay in the Hamptons for the summer, even if that arrogant elitist is weirdly likable and sponsoring a free clinic. But his guesthouse surely must be nicer than staying in that godawful motel with Evan. That's really the only reason Hank can think of that he finds himself wanting to say yes to the offer.

Boris is swimming when his guards bring Hank to him. Hank's eyes catch for a moment on his body moving effortlessly, so much bare skin sliding though the water with mesmerizing grace. He wrenches his gaze away, face flushing, as Boris pulls himself up the ladder and onto the deck.

“Ah ha! The good doctor,” Boris greets him cheerfully.

Hank tries to look at him politely, but there's still all that bare skin, and now it's all right _there_ in front of him with water droplets sliding down the curve of every muscle and spangling every hair. And that tight swimsuit Boris is wearing does not do much to hide anything. Hank's eyes skate off to the side again. 

“What a...pleasant surprise,” Boris adds as Dieter helps him into a robe. He does not sound especially surprised, but he _does_ sound pleased.

Hank forces himself to look at Boris while he's talking like a normal, sane person. What the hell is wrong with him, anyway? He's a _doctor_ , for heaven's sake! Random partial nudity is a professional hazard he got used to long ago. And why is his tongue not working, either? There really should be words coming out of his mouth by now. He should at least have managed a hello.

“What can I do for you?” Boris prompts when Hank still hasn't managed to get words out after a moment.

“So I was wondering about that possible vacancy you mentioned,” Hank finally says, stuffing his hands in his pockets when they start trying to fidget.

“Ah yes?” Boris says lightly, accepting a cup of espresso from Dieter and coming to stand quite unnecessarily close to Hank to sip at it. He's still dripping, and his robe is only loosely wrapped around him; the sleekly slicked hair of his chest is still plainly visible almost to his trim waist. And this close, Hank can see the droplets caught in Boris' eyelashes and pooling in the hollow of his throat. Over the slight burning scent of chlorine in the air and the earthy aroma of Boris' espresso, Hank can just barely catch the faint, distractingly musky hint of warm skin. Boris' eyes flick downward for just a moment as he lifts his cup to his lips with long, graceful fingers, and Hank has the brief, mad idea that Boris is admiring Hank's own body. But he was surely just glancing down at his coffee before taking a sip. Who doesn't do that?

“Your timing is impeccable,” Boris murmurs, and takes a sip. “Hank,” he adds slowly and enunciates thoroughly, like he's savoring the taste of Hank's name in his mouth along with his espresso. Hank figures Boris must just be showing off that he's getting used to saying such a plebeian name; that must be all it is. And Boris is smiling again, just a small quirk of his lips, but it warms his eyes thoroughly.

Hank feels a little dizzy, but it's kind of like the dizziness of riding a rollercoaster; there's a giddiness to it. Even when Hank realizes Dr. Silver is being displaced for him, it's not enough to make him question how right it feels to stay here. He has the strangest, most inexplicable feeling that it's going to be an amazing summer.


End file.
